


Epiphyte

by DesdemonaKaylose



Category: Batman: The Animated Series
Genre: F/F, day in the life, short fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-15
Updated: 2013-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-11 22:19:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/803868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesdemonaKaylose/pseuds/DesdemonaKaylose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Villains tend to spend a lot of time behind bars. It's a real downer. You're lucky if you have a cellmate as sweet as Harley Quinn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Epiphyte

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lady](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady/gifts).



There was a prison break that day.

Of course, it was located in a cellblock on the other side of the Asylum, so when the alarms went off and the hall lights started flashing red, not even a sound filtered down the stone corridor louder than a prisoner across the way sighing in irritation. This was the second escape in a month to pass right over them all.

Poison Ivy had wrapped her long-nailed fingers around the bars on the window of their shared cell as soon as the movement of bodies started in the distant halls above them. She could feel them as they passed, the stampede of human feet shaking faint clouds of dust from the ceiling.

“They were supposed to break us out,” she remarked, a dark frown cutting green lines in her pretty face.

Harley Quinn shrugged, swinging her legs under the edge of the bunk. “I dunno Red, they musta got a better offer.”

“Figures.”

“But hey,” Harley tried, “they know we’re good for it! They’ll be back for us after things cool down!”

Ivy sighed. “Maybe,” she replied, doubt in the downturn of her mouth. “Even if they do, that’s another week of florescent lights and dry stone. You’d think they could at least let a little mildew in here. Something besides people, for god’s sake.”

“Oh,” Harley answered, “a week’ll go by in no time! I hear the new director’s lobbyin’ for extracurriculars, heck, we might get an aerobics class! At least till somebody kills the teacher, I guess.”

“Mhm,” Ivy said.

“Come on, you’ll love jazzercise! You already know your way around a leotard.”

“Mm.”

Harley’s smile dropped a bit.

“Red?”

“Mm?”

Harley frowned and sat back against the wall. That was not a happy attitude at all, and an unhappy Ivy—while common enough—was a real shame. A little Monday cheer was in order, and Harley knew just the woman to make it happen.

 

 

 

“So you can do it?” Harley asked, beaming.

“Sure,” Doctor Perraro replied, linking his fingers under his chin. “But it’s not easy, you know. It’ll be an awful lot of trouble.”

“Oh,” Harley breathed, “I’d be so grateful though! You have no idea what it would mean to me, really, I just—”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry,” Harley said, putting a hand to her mouth. “It just upsets me when she’s like this. I can’t talk about it, not while she’s still so…”

Doctor Perraro reached over and patted her free hand, doing a poor job of hiding the intently calculating look on his face. “Would you feel better talking about it,” he asked, “once she’s on the mend, so to speak?”

“Sure,” Harley answered, brightening so suddenly that it almost looked like someone had switched on another light. “In fact, I think I’d probably feel a lot better for talking about it!”

“Well,” said the doctor, sitting up, “I’m sure that can all be arranged.”

 

 

 

Harley sat down halfway across her friend’s bunk and proceeded to drape herself elegantly over the mess of legs and sheets that passed for a supervillain at ten o’clock in the morning.

“Red,” she crooned, digging an elbow into ribs, “wake uuuuup.”

“Ugh,” the still mostly-sleeping woman groaned, burying her bedraggled head in the standard issue pancake-thick pillow. “Harley let me sleep, there’s nothing else to do in here. The only good thing about Arkham is that I get to sleep in without some grabby little up-and-comer breaking down my door at four in the morning.”

“Oh come on.”

“No,” Ivy grumbled, kneeing Harley in the side. “I’m planning on sleeping till the next prison break and you can’t stop me.”

The blond woman huffed and settled her cheek into her palm. “Alright, fine. But you’re gonna miss your present.”

“…Present?”

Harley nodded emphatically and then noticed that it wouldn’t be visible from where Ivy was lying with her head stuffed in a pillow. “Yep,” she said instead.

Ivy lifted her head just enough to peer over the grey-white pillowcase. “Oh?”

Harley bounced up, loose hair flopping, and gestured grandly to a small brown box sitting just inside the threshold of their cell. “Voila!”

Curiosity getting the best of her, Ivy shook herself free of the sheet and half-stumbled across the stone floor, pulling absentmindedly at her wild hair. The box was a standard shipping box, nothing in particular and certainly nothing adaptable as a weapon. Figured. Staff in Arkham was dumb, but not that dumb. She tilted her head and popped the flaps open.

“Oh,” she said. Carefully, she lifted up the delicate, dry stem of an epiphyte. Family Bromeliaceae. Its pale leaves curled downward at the ends of their thin lengths.

“Air plants!” Harley exclaimed, slapping her hands onto her hips in a jaunty sort of way. “Pretty low maintenance, they should be fine in here with us for a week or so till we knock over a wall or whatever.”

“How did you get these?” Ivy wondered, running a fingertip over the jutting horn of stem at its center.

Harley waved a hand. “You can’t mutate them without the tools back home. The warden said it was safe.”

Ivy looked up, throat a little thick. “Thanks,” she said.

“Don’t mention it!” Harley replied, throwing an arm around the larger woman’s waist. “Anything for my best gal!”


End file.
